State of the Union

America in the Sixties was an era of radical upheaval - of civil right s protests and anti-war marches; of sexual liberation and hallucinogen ic drugs. More tellingly, it was a time when you weren't supposed to t rust anyone over the age of thirty; when, if you were young, you rebel led against your parents and their conservative values. But not Hannah Buchan. Hannah is a great disappointment to her famous radical father and painter mother. Because instead of mounting the barricades and em bracing this age of profound social change, she wants nothing more tha n to marry her doctor boyfriend and raise a family in a small town. Ha nnah gets her wish. But once installed as the doctor's wife in a nowhe re corner of Maine, boredom sets in... until an unforeseen moment of p ersonal rebellion changes everything. Especially as Hannah is forced i nto breaking the law. For decades, this one transgression in an otherw ise faultless life remains buried. But then, in the charged atmosphere of America after 9/11, her secret comes out and her life goes into fr eefall.State of the Union is a remarkable depiction of one woman's att empts to find her own way in the shifting currents of her time. But it 's also an intriguing portrait of the intricacies of a long marriage, the ongoing guilt of parenthood, the perpetual tension between familia l responsibility and individual freedom, and the divisive debate betwe en liberal and conservative values that so engulfs the United States t oday.